My recent viewing of the film The Good Shepherd and my reading of the CIA History Staff's 2007 critique of the film left me curious about the fact behind the Hollywood fiction. Hitting upon a recommendation from that analysis and the film's archived website, I bought a book that had been sitting for months already...

Having heard Shane interview author Michael Brady on the show nearly a year ago, Into The Shadows: The Fever has long been on my radar. It wasn't until Spy-Con this past spring that I finally acquired a copy of the novel in question and only in the last couple of weeks that I've had the...

  I am quite fond of the saying that “truth is stranger than fiction.” As those of us who read spy fact (and those fiction works which blur the boundaries between the two) know, it is often the case. The film The Good Shepherd, directed by Robert De Niro and released by Universal Pictures in...

Transmission received from Spybrarian Matthew Kresal: Review of The Little Drummer Girl by John le Carre. One of the familiar tropes of the spy genre is an intelligence agency recruiting a civilian into an operation. In fact, one might even say it's become a cliche at this point. So perhaps it comes as something of...

Chances are, if you're reading this blog post, you're a podcast listener. Non-fiction podcasts such as Spybrary aren't the only things out there though. The rise of the podcast has also led to a renaissance in audio drama, the medium of sound and story formerly seen as being on the brink of extinction. One of...

Some films seem to stand the test of time. Not only are they popular on release but they find new audiences throughout the decades that follow. Where Eagles Dare, first released fifty years ago this year, is one such example. Starring the perhaps unlikely mix of Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood, this mix of spy...

Those who have heard my previous appearances on the podcast, such as my pitching the TV series The Prisoner to Shane in episode 22, will know I have a particular fondness for science fiction. So perhaps it comes as no surprise that I enjoy works that cross between science fiction and spy thriller. The film...

If you are at all a reader of non-fiction related to the world of espionage, the name Ben Macintyre is likely a familiar one. He is, after all, the author of such books as Agent Zigzag and the superb Kim Philby biography A Spy Among Friends. Back in 2008, however, he covered the most famous...

Spybrary Brush Pass: The Ghost: The Secret Life of CIA Spymaster James Jesus Angleton Spybrarian Matthew Kresal shares his brush pass review on The Ghost: The Secret Life of CIA Spymaster James Jesus Angleton by Jefferson Morley which has recently been published. According to Tim Weiner, author of Legacy of Ashes -The History of the...

We talk all about the British Cult Classic TV show ‘The Prisoner‘ starting Patrick McGoohan on today's  Spybrary Spy Podcast Today we are going to do something a little different. As regular listeners know the reason I cannot put out a weekly show is that I insist on reading the book of a guest before...